The Something
by BaldiDaughterChevy
Summary: The Something comes at 3 am.


**"Do you, dark night, search for deeper shadows?**

 **For stained-black alleys**

 **And hovel-deep holes?**

 **Places where the light is just a murmur**

 **Of ancient mythology**

 **And ragged silence drapes across your bones."**

 **Just an idea of what Sam might have dealt with after Lucifer spent time in his room.**

 **This is like real horror-no fluff, no comfort. Quite different than my usual but I was consumed by the idea. If it's not your thing, don't read. No hard feelings.**

 **T just for the terror of it.**

 **Don't own Supernatural, just The Something...and I'm not sure I wanna admit to that.**

Sam learned the script from his brother.

He laughed in Dean's face when he asked him if he was alright after little, old Luci decided to camp out in his room for awhile. Sam told him he wasn't that fragile, didn't need a therapy session over something so trivial. Basically fed some of Dean's classic lines back to him.

"No chick-flick moments, Dean. You finally got me saying it."

And just like his brother, he wasn't alright.

Lucifer had cleared out but he'd left behind a stain that seeped into the walls and rugs and corners; a terrible, creeping fear that lingered like a sour smell.

3 am was always bad for Sam, ever since he could remember it loomed in his mind, an empty space of nameless dread.

When he was a kid, after he'd found his dad's journal, he had the worst nightmares around that time; coming awake in blind panic and gasping so loud that Dean would come racing over to check on him and comfort him.

After Jess, when The Shining hit him full in the face, most of his visions came around that hour.

But now it's much worse, because that hour is no longer empty.

Now every night at 3 am, Sam has a visitor.

The silence is what gets to him first.

When he jolts awake for no obvious reason, choking and sweating and bound up in a sticky, tangled-web of bedsheets, the silence doesn't let him fall asleep again. He lays there and every auditory nerve in his head is straining for a sound, every muscle tensing for the voice of someone he can't see. Someone or something he feels is crouching down beside him, set to whisper in his ear.

The lack of noise is definitely a presence, like Something, capital 'S', Something hovering. He feels it in his bones, running fingers down his spine, tickling at the fine hairs at the back of his neck.

He sleeps with headphones for awhile, playing soft rock at mid-volume for some kind of distraction. But he tosses and turns too much, and after he practically destroys the cord on a couple pairs of earbuds from twisting them around he gives up on that idea.

He buys a box fan-the strongest one he can find; actually asks an associate which fan is the absolute loudest. Aside from a huge, orange, industrial fan that's labeled 'not safe for small children' it's the one guaranteed to make the most noise without blowing you out of bed.

He sets it up in his room, facing away from the bed so that it won't chill him all night, plugs it in and turns it on the highest setting.

The white noise helps but only moderately.

The dark is what haunts him next. With the rhythmic hum of his new fan to keep the voices at bay, his other senses take over.

At about 3 am, the hour that some people call 'the hour of The Devil', he watches the dark for whatever he feels is waiting in the murky corners.

3 am is when it's the worst. Always has been. Sunset is a distant memory and sunrise a far-off hope and he holds his breath for the ticking clock in the hall to ring out four times at last. He rests easier then...somewhat; lying prone on his bed while the after-shocks of fear ripple through his tired body in wavelike tremors.

He stares into the shadows, blinking and blinking and unable to tell the difference between eyes closed and eyes open.

So next he buys a nightlight. It's a flat, glowing screen that gives off a soft, green light and it smoothes out the shadows, eases the edges of the black that crowds into his eyes.

The first night it helps a little but there are still quiet, gaping places in his room that the tiny, green eye cannot illuminate.

Now he can see just enough, but not quite. And isn't that far corner inhabited by The Something, whatever it is, that awakened him? He swears he sees a flicker or a twitch, like some pale face, blank and waiting has blinked an evil eye or thrown a rotten grin in his direction.

So after awhile he just sleeps with all the lights on.

And that's when The Something decides to come out and play.

Whether it's truly a supernatural stain, a residual mark of evil that leaves behind this entity, or just the bug in Sam's brain biting down hard again, he's seeing something new now.

He still doesn't have a name for it, not that he ever talks about it, but in his mind it's always 'The Something.'

The Something that comes to him at The Devil's hour.

The first night he sees it-really gets a look at its eyes and body-he paints every ward and devil's trap he can think of on the walls of his room. He doesn't need to, he knows that it's superfluous, the bunker is warded everywhere already, but he needs the security of white paint sigils and tangible charms, of familiar wards that he can see and pick up.

But it does nothing. In fact, Sam thinks The Something might be grinning when it comes back the next night, a ragged look of turned-up mockery twisting at the gash in its face that passes for a mouth.

It's not shapeless anymore, the light has leaked it's form into view, exorcised it from a shadow to a creature and when Sam tries to turn the light off, it's still clearly visible. That and the fact that no charms or sigils can scare it away, tells Sam that his hallucinations are back in working order, and they've brought a new imaginary friend for him to play with.

Once, Sam tries to block it out by closing his eyes tightly, but The Something is watching, he can hear it's raspy breathing, smell it's fetid flesh as it sits faithfully. His horrible, faithful, dog from hell, standing by for a quick pat and a bloody snack.

When his eyes falter and flick open after awhile, it's there. Inches from his face. Gooey-white skin and wrinkled eyes unblinking through the pitch black.

The Devil's-hour dog is always waiting.

~end...?

 **Maybe I'll add another chapter at some point but for now I just wanted to write some straight-up horror because I was weaned on Lovecraft and King and I love it so.**

 **Hope you enjoyed...and you didn't read it at 3 am *evil laugh***


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